CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
WHENCE AND WHITHER
In draining the dregs of his Cognac, Roland de Grenville pressed the glass against his fine blond moustache and so, on setting aside the wide brimmed snifter, he took to straightening his well-waxed adornment. The plumping form of Gaston Hector was seated atop a matching chair on the other side of the small but finely decorated drawing room of his brother. This older gentleman sank low into his oval-back seat, appearing entirely at his ease there. He watched his friend realign that extravagant moustache and was reflexively petting his own greying goatee in sympathy. The room, this night, was dark, lit only by a single lamp, but both men were comfortable in the gloomed shadows.
"Will you visit her again tonight?"
"No," was the reply of Roland. "I haven't the energy and I don't wish to overplay my hand."
Gaston gave that characteristic half-smirk. "Go to Darling Adele and you will not need to play your hand at all," he said and Roland wryly laughed.
"I shall refrain, on all counts," said Roland.
"Tomorrow night you will be with your wife. There is that to encourage your restraint... your moderation."
This brought only a melancholy smile to the lips of de Grenville. "I have missed Madeleine."
After a pause for either delicacy or effect, Gaston agreed, "As do I. She, your wife, was a wonderful woman."
"She still is."
"I am certain that I could not say."
"She is."
For distant toast, Gaston raised his glass, "There are few like her."
"There are." Roland mirrored the gesture without enthusiasm.
Gaston rolled his head to the side to see things from another angle. "How charming must little Adele be."
"Not terribly charming and not terribly little. She is growing out as much as up." Roland shrugged as though he did not mind.
"There is a vitality in a little plumpness - a little rosy cheeked energy that the thin ones are thin on. Your Madeleine continues to keep her figure. Does she corset?"
"Only when she must."
"Very good. They say it is bad for the spine and the digestion."
Roland rose to refill the glasses on behalf of his roosted host. When Gaston's bowl had been refilled with liquid gold, Gaston resumed by saying, "Darling Cici adores corsets, as tight as can be. It is a sweat to dress her on some days, but she is so joyful when she can hardly breathe. She is beautiful in them too, but I can hardly understand it. If you could hear the swearing that comes out of Darling Sarah's mouth, Sarah Bernhardt, when she is confronted by the whale ribs. She wears them though, and hates them all the while. Worth - have you met him yet? He tells me that corsets are only necessary because women are imperfect. He told me this as we were at Bois de Boulogne. We were in his carriage - all trimmed in black and white with dashes of red. I'm sure you've seen it. We were in his carriage on an autumn day and he was red faced at the women there. Not one... not one the whole long day, was dressed to his satisfaction. One was too gaudy and the next too plain. He could not help but quietly exclaim that Paris needed better women. Oh, I tried to defend our feminine, but he would not be swayed away. End of story."
"Young Cici's bones still bend, I would guess."
Gaston re-applied his famous smirk. "She can bend. You should see some of the acrobatics that she performs for me. Her stage act has but half her tricks, for the sake of decency. You should see them." His wink flashed in dim light.
Roland replied, "Yes, I should." and both men gave knowing chortles.
With a wag of his finger, Gaston chided, "You have your hands full already. I still feel the sting of our last reshuffling."
Still standing, Roland took the opportunity to turn away from the matter and study that mediocre landscape in oils that hung over the cold fireplace. He learned nothing of it in the grey half-light. Tension silenced the pair while they sipped their brandy. To end the impasse, Gaston advanced a knight.
"Was this a good plan? That is, I enjoyed our visit here. I do miss my summers in Amance - such sunlight! - so I am glad that you suggested the trip out. Your subterfuge though, as amusing as we've found it, has it given you peace of mind of any kind?"
Still with his back to his old friend, Roland just gave a thin shouldered shrug. His empty hand made some indecipherable gesture.
"Did she stray? Has she bedded down with either of those painters? Did she betray you?"
Roland spun to face Hector and was on the precipice of making an accusation, but when he saw his spent, smug opponent, he bit it back. What could he gain? To give Gaston the pleasure of seeing him lose his temper over the vices of Madeleine would be a defeat. Worse, it would be cowardly. He had already surrendered too much to the old lecher. It had all been a mistake, Roland now knew. Maybe he had always known that it was foolish. What could be gained by this spying? Seeing nothing proved nothing. He had wanted Madeleine to fail the test, he suspected. He had dreamt of her falling to his level again. It was the hypocrisy that stung the most, but her failure would not end the pain, nor would it end his hypocrisy. He was doomed to that now, he was certain. Perhaps, Roland had sometimes thought, when he had trudged back from his visitation to the plump little maidservant, he had brought Gaston in on this secret is order to cause himself more pain.
Gaston could lance Roland's ribs from below the black cross, or dice for his worth, and carry off some prize. What glory might Gaston find in carrying Madeleine away as spoils from a spent marriage. But then, this union was not yet ruined. Gaston's triumph would collapse at the last when Madeleine was proven faithful. It would be proved that Madeleine was his superior. Roland was certain that this was true. He took faith in it. It allowed him to wear the hypocrisy as a mark of loyalty.
"It was never about betrayal. We love one another. She could never betray me, because I allow her everything. Treason is only possible when you demand loyalty. I demand nothing, but am given everything. That is how love is." Gaston Hector gave some sort of silent exclamation under his breath, but Roland did not hesitate in continuing. "There is no drama between Madeleine and me. We embrace the tedium of love and loyalty and happiness."
"The tedium. But the ruse…"
"As I've said, this was all really in aid of the art project. Look to the art. A watched pot never boils. The artists need time to come together in union, in sympathy, without my orchestrating everything."
"You could have told them."
"M. Ferland, at least, already saw everything as too experimentally laid out and applied. They must be free and to be free, they must imagine themselves to be free. Then will their sensibilities pollinate."
"Are they free?"
"Entirely. They might have left already, were they not. Why would they wish to? I provide everything. They have only to create art."
"Simple enough."
Roland's smirk was less genuine than that of Gaston, who continued saying, "What then of them? While you have pranced and fleeted about the house in the dead of night, has your mysterious espionage remarked the extent of their art? Will there be a great new artistic movement in France?"
Here the tips of Roland's blond moustache drooped. "I do not see anything like that yet. Maybe I am too close to it… still. Their work is just what it was back in Paris. I haven’t seen what they’ve done since I left them, though I’m sure there is little change. It is good… It is mediocre. It is certainly not great. Sometimes. There isn't enough… what is the word… oh yes, gestalt! There is no sum."
"Is the theory wrong then? Is it time to turn the page?"
"No! It is not. I don't think so. Maybe there needs to be another ingredient added to the recipe. What else can I toss into the pot? What have I missed?"
"Maybe," suggested Gaston, "the stove needs to be more heated. Is there anything making your pot boil? A handful of vegetables do not make a stew. You are simply preparing a salad."
"Perhaps."
A gold-ringed finger poked toward Roland as Gaston's brows arched absurdly, "Are you the fire? Maybe you need to be there giving the focus and making them tell you about their art."
"These are artists. They know their craft more than ever I could. They breathe and bleed their art. They think only of their art. They need no additional fire. The fires burn within them."
"Each of them?"
Roland considered before speaking, "There is no great fire in Ferland. Embers. M. Roy does not need to be enflamed. He ever simmers at a refined and perfect temperature. M. Montaigne… now M. Montaigne has fire. He burns himself black. He is all fire and no flame."
"And you might say that Roy is flame without fire."
"Yes! Good. That works. That fits."
"Roland? When comes the warmth?"
"What?"
"Warmth. Beauty. Warmth, beauty, and joy. Where will life come from?"
"Well, they are alive of course."
"Not everything that breathes is alive… and when they are dead, will their paintings live on? Is there life and love in their paintings?"
Roland tried a defense, "There will be beauty, and there can be no beauty without love."
Gaston laughed and made his jowls wobble with a shake of his head. "You don't believe that. Your arguments are simplistic. You are distracted. Go visit Darling Adele to clear your mind, or else take the matter into your own hands. This is your last night of freedom, after all… before all. Before your eternity, your life sentence resumes."
"Oh stop. We are in love. Do not try to turn it into something foul." Now, Roland did rise to the occasion and issue an accusation, "You could have had this happiness."
And Gaston set his glass down, leaned forward and braced against the arms of his chair. He focused himself entirely upon Roland's eyes and paused for effect before saying, "I see no happiness in you, old friend. I see fear… terrible fear. You are losing her."
"No. Not at …"
"You have lost her already. You know that. It is why you are here, with me, in this place, and not with her. You've lost her, but you are too afraid to admit it, so you have come and given her the chance to say it. You are not man enough to admit it… not man enough for that woman, and you hide and wait and spy like some schoolboy, and let her make the decision for you."
Roland tried to stare back at the shadowed figure of Gaston but, defeated, turned his back. There was nothing there though and he spun again to face his sentence, but his gaze flew about the dark room like a trapped starling and could find no landing place. Gaston pushed to his feet and, with bent back and unsteady legs, advanced with fiery determination and a single finger thrusting toward Roland.
"Go to Adele! Satisfy yourself! Be a man! Take her! Make love to her! Be a man!"
Roland fell back before the steady press. His defenses were weak, "I am man enough. I will do what is right. You are wrong. Do not tell me what to do."
The pudgy golden-ringed finger thumped against Roland's white shirt. "Tell yourself what to do then, but do it. Stop asking others to choose your path. Do something! Act, man."
Roland swung at Gaston's hand, knocking it away, and the bent man fell down, his knees collapsing. Roland instantly let drop his brandy snifter and reached to catch his old friend. Crumpled but wildly swinging once strong arms , Gaston beat back the efforts of Roland with anger. "Leave me be! Do not touch me," cried the fallen man and his would-be rescuer withdrew a pace. Gaston rolled over and got stumblingly onto his hands and knees. He stayed thus for a short while, as though testing the strength of his body, and then began to laugh cruelly, "Such a man."
"Such a man," repeated Roland with solemnity.
Gaston Hector, banker and gentleman, crawled across the floor, back to where he had begun. He climbed up his brother's Louis XVI chair to resume it awkwardly, wincing all the while. Roland produced a cotton handkerchief and bent to sponge golden Remy Martin Cognac off the intricately woven maroon Turkman rug.
"And what then?" rasped Gaston.
"Now, to bed. I will decide what then when it is come."
They each retired, but even though Roland had on a crisp new nightshirt, his moustache was well tied back, the pillows were plump, and his head had been set just perfectly dizzied by libations, he was unable to achieve anything like a restful repose. He should have gone to Adele. Maybe he should have gone to Madeleine and begged forgiveness. Adele would have entirely distracted him, whereas Madeleine would have tormented him. She was happier without him, he thought, but then banished that thought. He was certain that she yet loved him. He still loved her, so she must. He must still love her. She was his wife. His love. His life's partner. She was the architect of his dreams, he had once said at some dinner party, and he was proud of that phrase. It seemed so true and so right. Dreams remained but dreams.
While but a few miles away, in de Grenville's own conservatory, Montaigne was working through the night. Swept up in ideas and ability, he had no thought of sleep. His paintbrush was creating beautiful realities undreamed.
In the early morning, Ambrose was there to hurl back the curtains and throw light upon the Leda and Swan of Charles. Sun struck the colours of the canvas like a thunderbolt and the work was made brilliant. Working by lamplight through the night, Charles had applied his colours with such density and boldness that in the brightness, they shone and so shone the smile of Ambrose.
"Oh Charles. It is really very good."
He did not blush, but Charles grinned a grin that broke like a sun through the black cloud of his beard. "It is. I think it is good." Fatigue did not weary his eyes as they flitted about his work, critical yet proud.
Ambrose hopped forward and circled his hand around the forward wing passage, with practised care to avoid touching the thick wet paint. "This is excellent, here. Your paint is doing more than just describing feathers, it is as though the brush strokes are feathers themselves. It is like... as if they aren't touching the canvas." Ambrose hunched over and pushed his nose closer to the canvas to better examine. "Fascinating. The paint is so thick, it is remarkable that it has kept its form. No linseed at all? It is a paste. You are modelling the brush strokes like a sculptor might, and the light ... lightens it." He grinned up at the towering figure of Montaigne. "I like this."
"They don't look like feathers at all." Charles began to tear down his triumph.
"No! But it looks like a swan and a God and it looks like movement. You are absolutely right. If you had painted each feather perfectly, there would have been no sense of swan. I say perfectly.... these are painted perfectly, but not precisely. That is, it is not how they are, but how we see them."
"Impressionism," Charles let the word fall from his mouth like meat and maggots.
"No. No. I don't think so. I don't know." Ambrose drew his hands through thin grey strings of hair and wrung out the faltering ideas. "I don't know what it is. I am not entirely certain that it is right. I mean..."
"Is it just impressionism? Have I failed?"
"No. No. It is good. Boniface will tell you."
Charles brayed and his bulk plunged onto the piano bench, creaking it.
"Let me find him," asked Ambrose.
"It is before breakfast. He will be abed and would not rise for Final Judgement."
"Maybe. Maybe. Let me find him. He must see this."
What started as only a non-committal shrug shook the giant from his repose, and he rose and reached for the wide paintbrush.
Ambrose would not find Boniface in his workspace. The palette there had dried and the canvas remained draped beneath a white shroud, surrounded by likewise ghosted furniture. Thus morning sun brought out both the whiteness and the stillness of that room.
When the older painter did find the younger, Boniface was in his bedchamber. He was awake and dressed for the day, in his same ochre trousers and a white shirt with a collar so wide and high as to perfectly complement the fall of the blond man's hair. He was already shaved and it was the toilette kit that was now being placed into the travelling bag sitting open upon the unmade bed. Ambrose stood in the open doorway and took in all the details of the mise-en-scene. He noted the empty closet and the open chest of drawers. There was no acknowledgement, nod, or smirk for the Old Man that intruded upon the quiet preparations. There was no bloom in the buttonhole of Boniface. As startled as he was, Ambrose went immediately to the question that mattered.
"What time does Samuel take you to the station?"
"I don't know." Boniface folded up a pair of stockings before trying to give a better answer, "After lunch, I wager. Roland comes on the evening train. I haven't spoken to Samuel yet about it. There'll be room."
'He's worse than Charles,' thought Ambrose. "Come then. You have time to see what Charles has been working on. We want your opinion of it. It is something new."
Boniface studied the folded white stockings in his hand, as though there were something mysterious stitched deep into their soles. "More paint on canvas? That is nothing new. Pretty pictures in rectangles... or on ceilings? Decorations. Distractions."
Before closing the door quietly behind him, Ambrose stepped into the room.
"It is what you are paid to do. It is how you make your living, and unless you wish to be buried in a pauper's grave, unless you intend to ever have holes in your stockings, you had best apply yourself to making very good pretty rectangles. You are a painter, Boniface, and a great one."
"The prettiest rectangles of all."
Ambrose threw up his hands, "Why must I coddle today's youth? Steel yourself. Do not let some petty emotional setback sap your artistic enthusiasm. Bah, what am I saying? We both know that this is another of your moody affectations. You are pouting. Worse, you are putting on your sulking face. Do you think it makes you seem romantic or sensitive? No, it makes you appear as a schoolgirl. Steel yourself. You are better than a schoolgirl. You are an artist and if ever you hope to be a great artist - a famous artist, you will discard these petulant cosmetics and concentrate on the business of genius. Genius, Boniface, does not sulk prettily. It gets on with the business of making."
"So says the old man whose heart died alone when he was a youth. You have nothing to teach me about an emotional life. If you ever had a feeling you would dissect it and maybe paint it, but you would never feel it."
"Because I do not flail about with my hand on brow, swooning, fretting, and sighing, do not imagine that my soul is any less lively. I feel everything that you do, but I feel no need to posture to prove it. I want no one's pity or sympathy for my pains. If no one is impressed by my heart, my heart is not made less real, less grand. I do not give a damn for those who think to judge my emotions. It is no business of theirs... because I do not make it their business. Keep putting on your performances and continue to get thrown roses by a clamouring audience and you will never have your own self."
Boniface tossed his stockings into the bag and stuffed in his jacket after them. He let it crumple mercilessly.
"I'm not listening to your bitter babblings, Old Man."
'More petulance,' thought Ambrose. "Come see the painting by Charles," he said.
For a time, Boniface considered moaning about not feeling like doing it, or railing against art, or some other posture of melancholic apathy. Finally though he turned from his bag without even slamming it shut and said, "Lead then. I will follow."
Ambrose though was not so easily duped. This was just another of Boniface's showpieces - as much a role as his tempest-tossed poet facade. Could it really be so difficult to just be natural and ordered? Still, the boy was following, so there seemed little point in raising the matter again. Less lyric than dramatic.